I have received two pamphlets from you—by Oganovsky
and Maslov. Many thanks! They are both rotten
opportunists of the most harmful type (can there be anybody in
agreement with them and with Plekhanov? It could not be
worse). It is, however, extremely useful to know what they
are writing. I shall therefore be extremely grateful if you
send me things of this sort and also clippings from
newspapers (and magazines) dealing with similar subjects. A
long time ago (in the August or September issues), Y.
Smirnov, for instance, wrote something extremely shallow in
Russkiye Vedomosti about voting for credits, etc. I saw that,
but I know nothing further about the literary activities
of this man and others like him.

Here we are well off for foreign newspapers and books
in the libraries. We are living fairly well. Berne is a small
and dull but quite civilised town. Y.V. is ill with
influenza.

There is a growth in the anti-chauvinist mood among
the Germans; there has been a split in Stuttgart and in
Frankfurt am
Main.[3] An anti-chauvinist publication
Lichtstrahlen[4] is appearing in Berlin.

If it will not be too much trouble, and if you should
happen to be somewhere near (please do not go there specially
as there is absolutely no hurry) please find out from the
Granats who accepted my article for the Encyclopaedic
Dictionary, whether they sent the fee to M.T. Yelizarov
(as I
asked),[1]
and whether it is possible to obtain some
more work there for the Encyclopaedic Dictionary. I have
written to the
secretary[2]
about this but he has not
answered me.

Notes

[3]Lenin here refers to the split in the German Social-Democratic
Party between the majority, the opportunist Centrists who followed
Kautsky, and the radical Left wing.

[4]Lichtstrahlen (Rays of Light)—a monthly journal published by
Left Social-Democrats (the International Socialists of Germany)
under the editorship of J. Borhardt. It was published irregularly
from 1913 to 1921 in Berlin.